Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to Congress to reject the Obama administration’s negotiations with five other world powers and Iran that would allow the regime to have a nuclear program for peaceful reasons.

“For over a year, we’ve been told that no deal is better than a bad deal. Well this is a bad deal. It’s a very bad deal. We’re better off without it,” Netanyahu told a joint meeting of the House and Senate Tuesday in an address frequently punctuated by applause and cheers.

Netanyahu is a staunch opponent of the ongoing negotiations, fearing that it will allow Iranian leaders to continue secretly building a nuclear bomb that could pose a major threat to Israel’s security. But the nature of his speech – two weeks before the Israeli elections, and at the sole invitation of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio – has injected his appearance with a degree of partisanship and caused some friction in the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

A large portion of Netanyahu’s 40-minute speech was dedicated to outlining his concerns about the outlines of a deal, which the administration has yet to reveal publicly. He said it leaves Iran with a “vast” nuclear infrastructure and relies on investigators to stop them from using it to create a nuclear weapon – and Iran “plays a pretty good game of hide and cheat” with inspectors, he said.

Netanyahu also said that nearly all restrictions on the regime’s nuclear program would expire in a decade, alongside all U.S. sanctions, and he posited that this would enable them to create a nuclear arsenal “in a matter of weeks.”

“Iran could have the means to deliver that nuclear arsenal to the far reaching corners of the earth including to every part of the United States,” Netanyahu said. “That’s why this deal is so bad. It doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb. It paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”

This, he said, would “spark a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the planet” because many of Iran’s neighbors say they would respond to a nuclear Iran by building nuclear weapons of their own.

“This deal won’t be a farewell to arms; it would be a farewell to arms control,” Netanyahu said. If his predictions came true, it would be a major blow to President Obama’s stated goal of reducing the world’ nuclear weapons.

He said he disagrees with the pretense that inking a deal will either lead Iran to change, or leave the world safer than not negotiating with Iran’s leaders at all.

Netanyahu did not reject the idea that a deal with Iran is impossible, but he suggested the negotiators were approaching the talks in the wrong way by moving too quickly to lift sanctions. He outlined three conditions the world should demand for lifting economic penalties: Iran must stop aggression against its neighbors in the Middle East, stop supporting terrorism around the globe, and stop threatening to destroy Israel.

“If the world powers are not prepared to insist that Iran change its behavior before a deal is signed, at the very least they should insist that Iran change its behavior before a deal expires,” Netanyahu said. “If Iran wants to be treated like a normal country, let it act like a normal country.”

To underscore his point, Netanyahu began the speech with a long recitation of acts of terror Iran is purported to have supported, including the bombing of the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. He also warned that it is expanding its influence in the Middle East, and said Iran now “dominates” the capitals of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

And he suggested that Israel would take matters into its own hands if it feels unsafe.

“The days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over,” he said. “As a prime minister of Israel, I can promise you one more thing: Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand.”